HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — A restaurant fire shut down 9-10 businesses in Huntersville's popular Birkdale Village shopping center on Tuesday morning.
The fire happened at Red Rocks Cafe, which is in the middle of the area's biggest shopping and dining destination.
The businesses that were forced to close reopened a few hours later, but the restaurant is expected to remain closed for days, if not weeks.
"I didn't even think it was real until I saw it and my eyes just got huge," displaced worker Yvette Salerno said.
She thought the alarms were blaring for a fire drill until she saw thick, black smoke pumping out of the roof.
"Within a minute, it started billowing out of the top and it was black and got worse and worse, to where we all couldn't even breathe," she explained.
Dozens of employees and shoppers rushed to a nearby parking deck, but they had to escape again.
"The smoke and the ashes were with everybody," Salerno said.
Nearly a dozen businesses in the three-story building were shut down as firefighters tried to control the fire.
Firefighters think a kitchen fire in the restaurant jumped into a vent and made its way up to the roof.
None of the smoke or fire damage spilled into neighboring businesses.
"I was there two days ago, Red Rocks Cafe," customer Bernard Schether said.
Customers who frequent the popular restaurant, which seats hundreds of people a week, told Channel 9 they were stunned to see the local favorite surrounded by smoke.
"That's serious, that's severe," said Schether.
Fortunately, no one was hurt in the devastating fire.
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